DURHAM, N.H. – Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology
at UCLA, will visit the University of New Hampshire April 27, 2005
to discuss his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail
or Succeed as a featured event of UNH’s sixth annual Undergraduate
Research Conference.

Jared Diamond

“We are very pleased to host Jared Diamond as our Undergraduate
Research Conference keynote speaker and to make what should be a
very stimulating presentation available to the larger seacoast community,”
says John Aber, vice president for research and public service.

Diamond’s talk takes place at 7 p.m. in the Field House on
UNH’s Durham campus and is free and open to the public, but
advance reservations are strongly recommended to ensure seating.
Advance registration for tickets is available by calling 862-0405
or online at: http://www.unh.edu/urc,
which also lists the full schedule of public events for the Undergraduate
Research Conference at UNH’s Durham and Manchester campuses.
Parking is available at nearby A-lot; no parking passes are needed
after 6 p.m.

Diamond, whose research interests include integrative and evolutionary
physiology, explores environmental and structural factors to understand
why societies succeed in the world and what causes various civilizations
throughout history to fail. His previous book, Guns, Germs and Steel,
winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, explores
why Western societies have risen to dominate world affairs. A three-part
PBS special television series based on Guns, Germs and Steel will
air this year.

Collapse explores the reasons why advanced societies like the Mayans,
Easter Islanders and Anasazi seem to suddenly disappear and how
grave conflicts like the Rwandan genocide in current societies bring
a society to the point of collapse.

These societies carry a message and warning for present-day civilizations
that in Diamond’s research points to five factors: mismanagement
of the ecosystem elements like soil and water that support life;
climate change; shifts in trading partners; enemies; and the society’s
political, economic and social responses to these changes.